Advice Needed About Step1, Rotations, Residency

[personal]

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I have a bunch of questions and need some major advice.

I'm currently studying for step 1 and third year rotations start in a week and a half. I don't feel prepared to take the test. At this point I can take I could take it and score maybe a 200 max. Our school requires that we sit for it before starting third year in at the end of this month. So my options are to take it and score really low or postpone a rotation and get a much better score. Does it look really bad to take a rotation off to study for it?

I asked my school and they said that it doesn't go in my dean's letter or anything but I would be two months behind and would end third year at the end of August. Do residencies really care or ask about this when you apply or interview.I would still graduate on time since we have three months of "free time".


When do you start applying for residency and when would your application be considered "late"?

The down side is that I won't be able to do any away rotations to get LOR before I apply in September.When do you start applying for away rotations and when do most people do them. Do most people have them done by the time they apply for residency?

Also when do most people take Step 2?

So I need advice about whether I should take it and score low or take a rotation off and do better and the repercussions of postponing a rotation. Also if anybody has been through this kind of thing I would really really appreciate your advice. Thanks in advance.

 

[Law2Doc]

I have a bunch of questions and need some major advice.

I'm currently studying for step 1 and third year rotations start in a week and a half. I don't feel prepared to take the test. At this point I can take I could take it and score maybe a 200 max. Our school requires that we sit for it before starting third year in at the end of this month. So my options are to take it and score really low or postpone a rotation and get a much better score. Does it look really bad to take a rotation off to study for it?

I asked my school and they said that it doesn't go in my dean's letter or anything but I would be two months behind and would end third year at the end of August.Do residencies really care or ask about this when you apply or interview.

When do you start applying for residency and when would your application be considered "late"?

The down side is that I won't be able to do any away rotations to get LOR before I apply in September.When do you start applying for away rotations and when do most people do them. Do most people have them done by the time they apply for residency?

Also when do most people take Step 2?

So I need advice about whether I should take it and score low or take a rotation off and do better and the repercussions of postponing a rotation. Also if anybody has been through this kind of thing I would really really appreciate your advice. Thanks in advance.

Do you know what you want to do specialty-wise? If not, you are in a bind, on the one hand you don't know what kind of score you need but on the other you probably really need that extra month of rotation to get a feel for what you might be interested in. Probably pays to try and stay on track.

However if you do know specialty-wise that should make the answer easier. If it's not competitive and you are confident you will pass, you do your best on the test; but if it is competitive a 200 isn't going to do it, and you probably need to wait.

 

[Long Dong]

Someone once PM'ed me the same question. I'll paste my response to them here, without the identifing info.

This is something you have to decide for yourself. How will it affect 4th year and applying for residency. I would think there is a draw back being in the begining of 4th year most students do away rotations in the field they are going into. These help their apps cause these other programs get to know you and write letters of rec for you. LORs are very important for matching and you might also need to do a rotation at your home program to get a letter as well. Doing a 3rd year rotation in the begining of 4th year might make you a little late. You should discuss the pros/cons with facualty at your school.

After having said that, if it was me I'd would want to get threw at least one question bank before the exam. So I would push the test back to get a higher score and finish UW or Qbank.

I myself actually did a 4th year research elective in 3rd year. So at the begining of 4th year I had to do peds (a core 3rd rotation at my school) and was late doing rotations in derm. Lucky my research elective people wrote my LORs. So you have to weight the options if you choose to take more time to study. Pro being bigger board score, con being late on getting letters for residency. Again i'd talk to a counciler at your school for more advice then some radom guy like me on the internet.

 

[njbmd]

I have a bunch of questions and need some major advice.

I'm currently studying for step 1 and third year rotations start in a week and a half. I don't feel prepared to take the test. At this point I can take I could take it and score maybe a 200 max. Our school requires that we sit for it before starting third year in at the end of this month. So my options are to take it and score really low or postpone a rotation and get a much better score. Does it look really bad to take a rotation off to study for it?

I asked my school and they said that it doesn't go in my dean's letter or anything but I would be two months behind and would end third year at the end of August. Do residencies really care or ask about this when you apply or interview.I would still graduate on time since we have three months of "free time".


When do you start applying for residency and when would your application be considered "late"?

The down side is that I won't be able to do any away rotations to get LOR before I apply in September.When do you start applying for away rotations and when do most people do them. Do most people have them done by the time they apply for residency?

Also when do most people take Step 2?

So I need advice about whether I should take it and score low or take a rotation off and do better and the repercussions of postponing a rotation. Also if anybody has been through this kind of thing I would really really appreciate your advice. Thanks in advance.

Whether or not taking a rotation block off depends on the specialty that you are applying for. If your specialty is one of those under the SF Match (early match) then you will really put yourself in a bind in terms of having enough time to get your SF application materials together in time for this match.

If your first rotation is a long one (Internal Medicine for example) you would have a very long rotation to cover when your classmates are getting their ERAS application materials together and you would be late starting your elective rotations. If your first rotation is 4 or 8 weeks, then you probably won't have too much of a problem.

MyERAS opens July 1st for applicants to start their residency applications. The earlier you get your application done, the better as late applicants may end up without interviews and thus won't be able to match.

Of course, you definitely need to take the test when you are prepared because you don't want to fail and thus you need to weigh your options against your chances of failure. Low score IS better than failing altogether but if you are set on a competitive specialty, you need to be sure that you score well. You still may have to be working on third year when everyone one else in your class is working on applying for residency but USMLE Step I is very important for residency and is more important than getting your ERAS application done early.

If your school requires that you pass both parts of USMLE Step II before you can graduate, then you should take it as soon as you can in your fourth year. Taking the CK portion is not as crucial as getting that CS portion done. Since the number of sites where you can take CS is limited, you want to be able to get a slot at your desired site within a reasonable amount of time. The worse case scenario here is that you are scrambling around during interview season trying to take USMLE Step II CS (usually involves a plane flight - unless you are in one of the cities) or your closest site is so booked that you can't get a slot.

My advice:
Take USMLE Step I as soon as you are ready. If you don't like your score, you can bust your rear end and do well on USMLE Step II (take early). Scoring 200 is not the end of the world if you are interested in primary care. If you are interested in Surgery (or one of the surgical specialties) Anesthesia, or EM, you need well above 200.

If you have to skip a rotation to keep studying for this exam, make sure it is one of the shorter rotations like FM or Psych. This is because you would not likely be able to get interview time off if you were still doing a required third-year rotation. Get you ERAS stuff done as soon as you can and be sure that your letter writers get your LORs done in a timely manner.

You are not likely to be asked when you finished third year on any residency interview so finishing late is not that big of a deal except for the crunch of getting your application for residency done.

Good luck

 

[Hoya11]

how did you get into this situation?

well anyway heres what i can say to try to help..

step 1 score is very important, take your time to study for it
step 2, and pretty much everything else are much less important imo
you can always make up the time 4th year

make arrangements to miss a quick rotation like a 2, 4, or 6 weeker and then just jump in with the rest of the class after that